By Steve Pearce Information is the basic material of public services and creating and moving documents is a core activity. When Fareham Borough Council analysed their document processes they found a patchwork quilt of systems and technology. Steve Pearce describes how they developed a strategy to bring dividends including the electronic transfer of documents.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the country’s Local Government Information Unit are joining forces in a move which it is claimed will give councils a stronger voice to argue for local government north of the border. COSLA President, Pat Watters, said the integration of the two organizations was a “feather in the cap” of Scottish local government.Councillor Watters said COSLA’s internal communications were crucial to its continued health and well-being. As the representative body for Scotland’s councils it was important that it put in place frameworks for communicating with all of Scotland’s 1,222 elected members. The expertise the Scottish Local Government Information Unit would bring to COSLA would be invaluable, he said, in helping it to better promote the good work it was doing for its member councils. “It is about giving COSLA an even stronger voice to argue for Scottish Local Government,” he said. Paolo Vestri, the former Director of SLGIU said it had never been more important for Scottish local government to be represented by a strong unified association.

The Prime has said dropping the private finance initiative would be a fundamental mistake at a time when the government is determined to press ahead with reform in the public services and a radical restructuring of the welfare state. But his comments have run into immediate criticism from public service unions with renewed calls for a review to establish whether or not the PFI brings value for money.Mr. Blair used his monthly televised Downing Street briefing to stress his continued commitment to reform, which was, he said, the big challenge facing the government and the Labour Party. “Our purpose is to take the 1945 welfare state settlement and radically redraw it,” he said. He outlined what he saw as a series of improvements in health and education but said there was a gap between people’s perceptions and the facts of what was happening in the NHS.